EEE country profiles: understanding how electric and electronic products are regulated in specifc countries

Product regulations affecting EEE products are proliferating all over the world.  Enhesa’s EEE Country Profiles provide a concise, comprehensive and analytical description of regulations related to EEE throughout the lifecycle of a product from product design to marketing to end  of life.

The following  re examples from the recently updated EU EEE Country Profile and the Japan EEE Country Profile.

In the last year, Enhesa identified and analyzed over 160 regulations in the EU related to EEE.  New regulatory developments include:

• The latest exemptions from the heavy metal ban of the Directive on the restrictions of hazardous substance (RoHS) and its adopted recast;
• The revised framework on the ecodesign and energy labeling of energy-using products from Directive 2009/125/EC on the ecodesign of energy-related products and Directive 2010/30/EU on the energy label of energy-related products;
• The updated list of electrical and electronic equipment covered by ecodesign requirements and the energy label such as refrigerators, washing machines or dishwashers;
• The latest developments on nanotechnology, including the draft definition of nanomaterial;
• The capacity labeling requirements for batteries and accumulators;
• The new ecolabeling criteria for notebooks and personal computers;
• The recent development of the Candidate List of Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC), including  53 substances.  Suppliers of products containing SVHCs in a concentration above 0.1% (w/w) must  provide information to customers and consumers and also send a notification to  the European Chemicals Agency as of  1  June 2011.  Amongst these SVHCs can be found hexabromocyclododecane
  (HBCDD), which is used as a brominated flame retardant in certain electrical  and electronic equipment, and Bis (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), which is  also used in the extrusion of profiles for electric equipment as well as wires  and cables, and Diisobutyl phthalate (DIBP) used as a specialist plasticizer or  as a plasticizer for nitrocellulose, cellulose ether and polyacrylate and  polyacetate dispersions.
• The first six SVHCs subject to authorization under REACH, including for instance  bis (2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP), benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP) and dibutyl  phthalate (DBP).

Product regulations are also on the  rise in Japan.  More so, multiple ministries working on this issue have conflicting  interests at times, which makes things even more complex. The latest updates include:

• The latest amendment to the Electrical  Appliance and Material Safety Act which added certain types of LED (light emitting diode) lamps, LED lighting equipment, electric vacuum cleaners and  non-detachable lithium-ion batteries to  the list of electrical appliances subject to the Act;
• Japanese REACH: the amendments of 20 May 2009 to the Chemical Substances Control Law which came into force in two phases in 1 April 2010 and 1 April 2011. While the first reporting deadline on the existing chemicals passed on 30 June 2011, the ministries will publish a list of Priority Assessment Chemical Substances for which further reporting and/or toxicity studies would be ordered to the industry.
• The Basic Policy for the Promotion of Green Procurement by Government updated for FY 2011;
• The Act to Promote Development and Manufacture of Energy Environmental Products published with an aim to incubate low-carbon industries to lead the country’s next economic development and to make Japan a global center of low-carbon technologies and businesses;
• The amendment to the Law on the Recycling of Specific Home Appliances, which added liquid crystal display (LCD) and plasma display panel (PDP) television sets to the list of home appliances regulated under the Act;
• Earlier phase-out of hydrochlorofluorocarbons determined under the Law on the Control of Specific Substances for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer;
• Japanese RoHS: the amended Standard of 20 January 2008 on the Marking for Presence of Specific Chemical Substances for Electrical and Electronic Equipment (JIS C0950:2008), i.e. known as J-MOSS.
• Testing and assessment plan for endocrine disrupters until 2015 which would trigger tighter control on the production, use, and release of endocrine disrupters the first time in Japan.

These updates represent only a few of the rapid developments for the EU & Japan. If you are interested in staying on top of these updates, retrieve your copies of our EEE Country Profiles by subscribing to the Enhesa EEE-service.  The EEE service includes country profiles for
several other countries as well as monthly updates on emerging requlations for  more than 50 countries. For more information, please contact us at info@enhesa.com to review the EEE subscription order form. 

Flore Cognat, EHS Regulatory Cnsultant